A Ukrainian soldier prepares a Baba Yaga heavy bomber drone before a nighttime training flight in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine, on March 23, 2026. (Dmytro Smolienko / Ukrinform / NurPhoto / Getty Images)More than four years into a full-scale war Russia started but has no clear plan to win or even stop, the balance of power in the drone war has taken a significant shift in favor of Ukraine.Ukrainian drone programs at every level have begun to outperform Russia’s, and in a war that is increasingly defined by these unmanned platforms, this shift has started to produce tangible results not only on the battlefield, but also now in the skies above Russia."Moscow from now on never sleeps," Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, posted on Telegram on May 17. Ukrainian forces had just launched one of their largest aerial raids of the war against targets in Moscow, with drones and cruise missiles striking targets across the Russian capital, including the heavily defended Moscow Refinery.The Solnechnogorsk oil facility on fire amid Ukrainian drone strikes in Moscow Oblast, Russia, on May 17, 2026. (Supernova_plus / Telegram)Footage posted to Russian social media showed Ukrainian drones impacting the refinery, while the Solnechnogorsk oil loading station was seen engulfed in flames, and Russian aviation authorities once again implemented the "carpet" plan, grounding all flights at Moscow’s airports.The reach of the Ukrainian drone program and the ability to strike even heavily defended targets around the Russian capital explains the extreme precautions Vladimir Putin’s Russia took to hold its Victory Day parade on May 9th. Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war. Ukrainian drone and… pic.twitter.com/BVFJ1BJQ1i— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 17, 2026